Neeland’s hand touched her arm:
“I have a cab. Are you going home with her?”
“I dare not,” she said.
“Then will you take this Russian girl to her home, Sengoun?” he asked. And added in a low voice: “She is one of your own people, you know.”
“All right,” said Sengoun blissfully. “I’d take the devil home if you asked me! Besides, I can talk to her about my regiment on the way. That will be wonderful, Neeland! That will be quite wonderful! I can talk to her in Russian about my regiment all the way home!”
He laughed and looked at his friend, at Ilse Dumont, at the drooping figure he was to take under his escort. He glanced down at his own ragged attire where he stood hatless, collarless, one sleeve of his evening coat ripped open to the shoulder.
“Isn’t it wonderful!” he cried, bursting out into uncontrollable laughter. “Neeland, my dear comrade, this has been the most delightfully wonderful night of my entire life! But the great miracle is still to come! Hurrah for a thousand lances! Hurrah! Town taken by Prince Erlik! Hurrah!”
And he seized the young girl whom he was to escort 394 to her home—wherever that hazy locality might be—and carried her in his arms to the taxicab, amid encouraging shouts of laughter from the line of cavalrymen who had been watching the proceedings from the corner of the rue Vilna.
That shout of Gallic appreciation inflamed Sengoun: he reached for his hat, to lift and wave it, but found no hat on his head. So he waved his tattered sleeve instead:
“Hurrah for France!” he shouted. “Hurrah for Russia! I’m Sengoun, of the Terek!—And I am to have a thousand lances with which to explain to the Germans my opinion of them and of their Emperor!”